Review: Crush the Castle

Crush the Castle is the mobile version of Armor Games’ smash flash game of the same name. It costs ÂŁ1.19 on the App Store. But is it worth the money? Well let’s take a look…

If you’ve never played CtC before (and you really, really should have) the concept is simple; fling rocks from a trebuchet at a castle and try to kill all of the occupants. There are four levels of weaponry available, small, medium and large rocks.Â Each can be fired as singles or clusters. There are alsoÂ bombs, which canÂ againÂ be firedÂ singularly orÂ in aÂ cluster.

The concept has beenÂ more or less left untouched for the iPod version. You tap the screen once to start the swing of the trebuchet and then tap again to release the payload. The physics engine works incredibly well on the iPod, with only a few occasions where the frame rate dropped; and even then, this wasÂ slight. It takes a few turns to get used to the swing and the curve of the rocks,Â but once you do you can really enjoy smashing down castle walls.

Oh man, this is gonna get messy

The game features 50 levels, which have a smooth difficulty curve in line with the new levels of weapon that are unlocked. Some levels require some thinking and strategy, although many can be solved by just flinging a bunch of rocks at the target.

The game also features a medal system, which rewards you for taking down all the occupant of the castle in the fewest turns. It is incredibly addictive to try a level again and again just to take down that last knight whoÂ refuses toÂ die.

There’s also a hidden weapon in the game that is only unlocked once all 50 gold medals are gained. I won’t ruin it for you, but it is mind-warpingly fun to use.

One slightly disappointing feature is the level editor. Having struggled to use the editor in the flash version of the game, I found it almost impossible to use the iPod editor to make anything substantial. Pieces of the castle would often move by accident, and the pieces actually move each other when bumped. A lack of accuracy makes the editor completely user unfriendly.

Review Round Up:

Graphics: 3/5 Nothing majorly impressive but you can still see everything that’s going on.

Sound: 2/5 Only one piece of music in the whole game and it’s only on the menu screen. AlthoughÂ this isÂ on your iPod, ao use your own music.

Gameplay: 4/5 It’s fun to knock stuff down. ‘Nuff said.

Longevity: 3/5 There are all the medals to get, as well as the secret weapon to mess around with. Skip the level editor though.

Overall: 3 crushed castles out of 5. Itâ€™s a good conversion of great flash game and has a lot to play through. The level editor is a bit broken however.

UPDATE: a new update for the game has just been released, with a bunch of new levels and weapons. Unfortunately there appears to be a loose screw at Armor Games headquarters, because two of the levels are actually impossible to beat.Â Thus itâ€™s impossible to unlock any of the later levels. Let’s hope for an updated update soon!

Steve is the owner/founder of newbreview.com which he established in 2009. Having cut his teeth writing about trading card games, he switched over to his first love, Video Games and started newbreview.com as a project designed to showcase the talents of budding young writers.

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